


Van Gogh and Gauguin's Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Relationship

by osprey_archer



Category: 19th Century CE RPF, Artists RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Manipulative Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Except of course Paul does not ask, because Paul never asks. He presses Vincent against the doorjamb and takes Vincent’s mouth for his own, his teeth sharp on Vincent’s lower lip.</i>
</p>
<p>Or: van Gogh is hard to live with, and Gauguin is a surprisingly solicitous manipulative bastard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Van Gogh and Gauguin's Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Relationship

_20 December 1888_

It must be tiresome for Gauguin to have to take care of him so much; even Theo got tired of it, and Theo is Vincent’s brother; it must be very, very tiresome, and Vincent shouldn’t hate that Gauguin hates him for it. 

“You are like a little child,” says Gauguin. “Honestly, can you not clean your own two hands when you scrape them, Vincent, this is ridiculous—no, don’t clench your hands on my blankets, you’ll get blood all over everything. How did you make such a mess of yourself?” 

His voice is accusing, as are his big hands scraping a soapy rag Vincent’s snow-scraped palms with rust-red painful vehemence. “You think I did it on purpose?” 

“It hadn’t occurred to me,” says Gauguin. “But it would not surprise me. Did you?” 

Vincent’s hands are the only part of him worth anything (and worth not much; no one will buy his paintings); as if he would hurt them just to get Gauguin to pay attention to him, for once, at least once before he leaves Arles. If he leaves Arles. He said he wouldn’t. But—

Vincent’s throat closes against the thought. It’s fine if Paul goes. It is; he should have expected it. Paul’s attention focuses on nothing and no one for long, just long enough to paint it, and he’s already painted Vincent. (Badly.) “I fell. On the ice, on the road walking back from the orchard. I slipped on the ice and I fell.” Anyone can fall, Gauguin can’t think Vincent is irritating him on purpose. 

Or he can. “You fell. You who pays so much attention to his surroundings, you slipped on the ice and fell.” 

Vincent swallows and stares at the dust red brick floor, which is orangeish now in the sunset shining through the window. Gauguin sits down, his bulk compressing the mattress, and Vincent tilts and nearly falls against him. “Vincent,” Gauguin says. “Vincent? I can’t clean your hands if you clench them in fists.” 

Vincent stares down at his clenched hands, and stretches his fingers out: thin, the knuckles swollen. “You were hurting me,” he says. 

“You’re easily hurt,” says Gauguin, stretching his left hand to secure both Vincent’s wrists (Gauguin has such big hands, and Vincent’s wrists are so thin from not eating) and cleaning again, more gently. “Weakling.” 

He sounds almost as affectionate as exasperated. The pleasure of that is more painful than the lye. 

Vincent likes to please Gauguin; he wishes they agreed more on art, he wishes his own paintings were better. Not that Vincent expected them to be as good as Gauguin’s; Gauguin is a genius, and what has Vincent painted but a few decent sunflowers? 

But Gauguin probably wouldn’t like it if Vincent painted as well as he did, anyway.

The sunflowers hang over Gauguin’s bed, where Vincent hung them. Surely it’s a good sign that Gauguin still sleeps under Vincent’s sunflowers?

The sunflowers look a peculiar scarlet in the sunset. Vincent wants suddenly to paint more, right now, to fill an entire house with sunflowers, an entire country, to paint a line of sunflowers from Arles to Japan: paintings of sunflowers to fight the December chill.

“What were you doing out anyway? It’s too cold to paint outside,” says Gauguin. His thick fingers dig into Vincent’s wrist, crescents of darkish half-dried paint from under his fingernails staining Vincent’s skin like scabs. 

Vincent tries to regain the thread of conversation. “It’s warmer than Paris,” says Vincent. 

Gauguin huffs, horse-like. He doesn’t like Paris anyway; he wouldn’t leave for Paris. 

Vincent is not sure how much Theo paid Gauguin to come to Arles in the first place, but he suspects the amount was embarrassing. He does not deserve his brother. Any day Theo will be as tired of him as Gauguin is: Vincent’s endless letters, his lack of economy, his paintings that do not sell— 

This is why Vincent doesn’t paint from imagination as Gauguin would like: his mind is like an old medieval map, “Here be dragons,” ugly scaly dragons that would make his paintings even uglier than before. 

Vincent shivers. Gauguin tightens his grip, then there’s hot ochre burn of iodine across Vincent’s palms. Vincent startles and blinks on tears from the pain and smell. “It was dirty,” says Gauguin.

“You could have warned—” Vincent snaps, but Gauguin continues right on, rubbing his thumb over Vincent’s wrists: “How did you ever look after yourself? It would have got infected.” 

Vincent bites his lip (his lips are raw, between biting and the winter wind), and says, “Thank you.” Vincent can feel his pulse beat against Gauguin’s thumb, so tight is Paul’s grip. It shouldn’t be comforting. Vincent loves it. They sit, companionable, Gauguin tapping his thumbs absently on Vincent’s wrists. 

“Let’s go to the brothel,” says Gauguin. “Do we have money?” 

Vincent would rather not move, but—anything to make Gauguin happy. ”I’ll check.” 

He had hidden all their money, so Gauguin couldn’t buy a train ticket. He has to search through his canvases, clothes, Japanese prints, a pile of paints from Paris and letters from Theo – ah, there. The money is stuck in one of Theo’s letters, Theo commiserating about Gauguin’s plan to leave Arles. 

“Vincent?” yells Gauguin. 

Gauguin might just walk to Paris, just to get away from Vincent. Vincent still can’t bring himself to take the money to him, he stuffs it back into the envelope instead. 

Vincent trails back to Gauguin’s room. Gauguin is in his undershirt, searching his laundry for a shirt without paint stains. His muscular arms are goose-pimpled with cold, but he doesn’t seem to mind, he’s humming a cancan, he…stops and frowns, because he’s seen Vincent huddled in the doorway. God, how Vincent hates that look; how he would like to smack if off Gauguin’s face, that peremptory disdain. “Van Gogh?” 

Gauguin usually puts them on familiar terms. Vincent looks at his feet, his big toe sticking out of a hole in his sock. He isn’t a good liar. “We’re broke.”

Gauguin punches his shirts in disgust. “What do you do with your brother’s money? Wipe your ass with it?”

God, Vincent is so tired of this. “Go to hell,” he says. “Or Paris, or Tonkin, or wherever—”

Gauguin stalks across the room, glowering. “Vincent,” he says. Vincent shoves him away, ineffectually (Gauguin is so _big_ ). 

Vincent rams Gauguin with this shoulder, a good hard shove that would slam Gauguin against the doorframe, but Gauguin grabs his wrist so Vincent spins and hits the wall. His breath punches out of him, like anger, as Gauguin rubs his own shoulder and glares. “You ruin everything,” Gauguin snaps. 

Gauguin is going to leave. Gauguin should go, if he wants to. Vincent is sick with the knowledge that he would sharpen his palette knife on his teeth and stab himself, if that would make Paul stay; make him want to stay; he has to want to stay. “Why did you even come to Arles? It’s pointless, it’s all pointless,” a tirade Vincent doesn’t mean and wouldn’t say but can’t stop, “you ought to leave, I don’t care, you hate me anyway—”

“Your hands are bleeding,” cuts in Gauguin, mildly. 

They are. Vincent’s nails, though bitten to the quick, have ripped open the scabs. Blood dribbles down his knuckles and drips like thick scarlet molasses, and Vincent is so mesmerized he is taken by surprise when Gauguin touches him. 

“Calm down,” says Gauguin, clenching one hand at the back of Vincent’s skull. “Breathe.” 

So kind, much too kind. Gauguin’s fingers plow furrows through Vincent’s short red hair; he bounces Vincent’s forehead against his own, light but repeated, and somehow the rocking is calming. Gauguin’s upper arms are all over goose pimpled with cold, and Vincent wants very much to touch. He speaks instead: “I…Theo’s next letter should come soon, with my allowance, if you’ll wait, just wait, don’t…” 

“I already said I wouldn’t go,” says Gauguin, resting Vincent’s forehead against his own. Vincent, cross-eyed with the proximity, shuts his eyes. “Good God.” 

He sounds – not even angry, just so tired. Vincent’s hands shake. Paul has to _want_ to stay. “I’m sorry—”

“We will just be frugal,” says Gauguin, talking right over him again. “If that is even possible with you.” 

“I lived by the coal mines once, with nothing,” Vincent says, eager to prove his cheapness, but Paul sighs, even more exasperated – of course Paul is not interested in self-denial. Vincent bites his lip. “Whatever you like,” he offers. “Anything you ask is yours.”

Except of course Paul does not ask, because Paul never asks. He presses Vincent against the doorjamb and takes Vincent’s mouth for his own, his teeth sharp on Vincent’s lower lip. 

Vincent gasps, or would gasp, but he can’t breathe; even when Gauguin releases his mouth for a moment, he can’t breath. “Gauguin—” 

“Vincent?” says Paul, all sweet reason. Vincent does gasp then, and Paul laughs and kisses Vincent’s mouth, his eyelids, his forehead, his cheeks above his beard, until Vincent tries to kiss back; but Paul’s grip at the nape of his neck stops him, his fingers dig into the soft spot below Vincent’s ear. 

“Paul,” Vincent pleads.

“Vincent, my pet,” says Paul, running his hands over Vincent’s ribs as if along an accordion, “What did you do with our money?” 

Vincent shudders. “I didn’t…”

Paul’s hands slide up Vincent’s spine light as a spider. Vincent hisses, his hands bunching in Paul’s undershirt – “You’ll get blood on my shirt,” Paul says, shrugging Vincent’s hands off, but he tightens his grip on Vincent and holds him close. “Talk to me,” he murmurs, his mustache brushing Vincent’s ear. 

“You’re hurting me,” blurts Vincent. 

“I am not.” Paul bites him, not gently. “You’re enjoying this.” 

Yes. Yes, and it’s awful. Vincent presses his face into Paul’s neck; Paul cradles his head in one hand, folding over his ears, kneading his neck, it feels lovely and Vincent is suddenly horribly certain that Paul is sculpting him like clay. His muscles are moldable, his bones wobbly, Paul’s fingers score out the ridges between his ribs. 

“Well,” says Paul, fumbling open Vincent’s buttons. “You’re biddable enough at least.” He slips Vincent’s suspenders off his shoulders, one big cold hand under his shirt against the small of his back. “And cheap, too,” he murmurs into Vincent’s ear, and Vincent shudders again and looks up and Gauguin smirks and kisses him again.

Vincent shoves, and for a horrible moment Gauguin won’t let go; but then he does and Vincent stumbles back till he hits the other wall. His hands skitter as he tries to do up his own buttons. 

“Need some help?” says Gauguin. 

“Don’t touch me,” snaps Vincent. He quits with the buttons, he’s putting them in the wrong buttonholes anyway. Gauguin opens his mouth, but Vincent snaps, “I’ll see if I can find you any money.” It’s so much less awful if he doesn’t have to hear Gauguin say it, but he can’t leave the hall fast enough to miss Gauguin’s awful cat got the cream smile. 

Vincent kneels beside his dresser. His hands shake as he flips through the letters till – “Here,” he says, and Gauguin bends down and kisses him hard and hot, till Vincent leans into it; and then Gauguin slips the money from his hand and pats his head as he pulls away. 

“I knew you’d be reasonable in the end,” says Gauguin, splaying the money to count it. Vincent is still kneeling, half collapsed over the drawer. Gauguin smiles down at him and holds out a hand to help him up. “You had best wipe your face. You’re bleeding again.” 

He is. His hands only slightly, but his fingertips come away from his lips dotted crimson. “Come on then,” says Gauguin; but Vincent, staring at his own bloody fingers, doesn’t take Gauguin’s hand; and Gauguin sighs and walks away.


End file.
